IISc prof Biman Bagchi receives Joel Henry Hildebrand Award, 2021 for Chemistry

Premier Indian Institute Science (IISc) Professor Biman Bagchi has been selected as the 2021 recipient of the Joel Henry Hildebrand Award in theoretical and experimental chemistry of liquids, sponsored by ExxonMobil Research and Engineering Company, an official said.

"This is a prestigious award in the area of liquids and glasses. The American Chemic Society (ACS) national awards programme is designed to encourage the advancement of chemistry in all its branches and to support research in chemical science and industry," said the city-based institute in a statement here. The 66-year-old Bagchi is biophysical chemist, theoretical chemist and an Amrut Mody Professor at the solid state and structural chemistry lab in the over century-old renowned institute.

A chemistry graduate from Kolkata's Presidency College in 1974, Bagchi obtained master's degree in chemistry from Calcutta University in 1976 and went to the US where he did PhD from Brown University, an Ivy League institution at Providence in Rhode Island in 1980. He also did post-doctoral studies at James Franck Institute of the University of Chicago.

Bagchi returned to India in 1984 and joined the IISc as a lecturer where he has established the Bagchi research group. IISc Director G. Rangarajan congratulated Bagchi for being selected to the prestigious award in the field of chemistry. Announcing the selection in Washington DC, ACS senior manager Felicia Foxworth Dixon said in an e-mail on Monday night that the award would be presented to Bagchi at the society's spring 2021 national meeting and expo in San Antonio in Texas on March 23, 2021.

Names of the 2021 ACS national award recipients will be published in the August issue of "Chemical & Engineering News", and announced in C&En News besides in ACS Twitter handle. Noted chemistry professors Bob Zwanzig, Casey Hynes and Hans Andersen were the recipients of the award in the past. "The ACS awards are designed to encourage the advancement of chemistry in all its branches, to support research in chemical science and industry and to promote the careers of chemists,a said Dixon on the occasion.